LaTex2Web logo

Documents Live, a web authoring and publishing system

If you see this, something is wrong

Table of contents

First published on Thursday, Aug 14, 2025 and last modified on Thursday, Aug 28, 2025 by François Chaplais.

Paragraphs and sections

François Chaplais

1 Introduction

Running text is structured in paragraphs and sections.

2 Paragraphs

Paragraphs are chunks of running text which are separated by one (or more) blank lines.

While paragraphs, per se, do not exist in plain LaTeX, they are full class citizens in HTML. In HTML, a paragraph begins with the opening tag <p> and ends with the closing tag </p>.

3 Sections

Sectioning commands define the hierarchical organization of the document. Here is a top-down list of sectioning commands.

  1. \part
  2. \chapter
  3. \section
  4. \subsection
  5. \subsubsection
  6. \paragraph (which is not the same as running text paragraphs)
  7. \subparagraph

This text belongs to a section. Inside this section, we can embed a

  • subsection
  • subsubsection
  • paragraph
  • subparagraph

Here is an illustration.

3.1 I am the title of a subsection

This is the beginning of the subsection content. This content includes the following subsubsection.

3.1.1 This the title of a subsubsection

Let us put some lorem text in the next running text paragraph.

Lorem ipsum excepteur tempor est, nulla in anim magna magna, eu in anim sunt. Ut dolor veniam dolore irure commodo in consectetur minim, sit, et culpa ad. Anim laborum esse magna deserunt cillum adipiscing magna ullamco amet dolor, incididunt velit.

After that, we include a sectioning paragraph.

3.1.1.1 I am a sectioning paragraph

This sectioning paragraph is part of a subsubsection and includes the following subparagraph.

3.1.1.1.1 This is the bottom of the hierarchy

You can visualize the document hierarchy by clicking on section titles. This will hide/reveal the section’s content, including the sections inside.

3.2 Conclusion

Summary 1

Sectioning command structure the hierarchy of the document. Any other LaTeX2Web content belongs somewhere in this hierarchy. The sectioning commands are

  1. \part
  2. \chapter
  3. \section
  4. \subsection
  5. \subsubsection
  6. \paragraph (which is not the same as running text paragraphs)
  7. \subparagraph

4 Terminal types

Other LaTeX2Web objects may have a hierarchical structure. Some objects, by contrast, cannot include any LaTeX2Web object. These object types are called terminal types. Here is a short list.

  • paragraph
  • simple list (like this one), and checklist (like a to-do list)
  • media: image, video, audio
  • equation
  • figure (which is an image with a caption)
  • chart
  • table and CSV table

Tables are NOT meant for layout. The cell content must be running text, and nothing else.